How to Draw Hair

Introduction

• Drawing hair can be intimidating due to its complexity.
• Finding the balance between drawing all strands and oversimplification is key.
• The speaker shares steps to improve hair drawing techniques.

Studying Real-Life Hair

• Initial attempts: Directly copying real hair using a soft brush; result was messy.
• Simplification: Using fewer values and references with strong light sources for better light-shadow understanding.
• Observation: Hair is shiny with high contrast, similar to metals.
• Textured hair: Different approaches but the same principles apply; focus on overall shape and silhouette.

Stylized vs Realistic Hair

• Realization: Stylized hair differs significantly from realistic hair.
• Key differences:
  • Stylized hair grows from the scalp atop the skull.
  • Drawing anime hair involves sketching the head shape, determining hair origin (parting or whorl), and simplifying into chunks.
  • Treat hair as ribbons for flat hair and tubes/puffs for textured hair.

Techniques for Stylized Hair

• Shapes and Design:
  • Break hair into simple shapes (ribbons, tubes, spheres).
  • Add variation in strands' widths, lengths, and angles.
  • Good design involves 70-30 ratio or variations such as 60-30-10.

Shading Stylized Hair

• Overall Shape First: Focus on big shadow shapes before adding texture.
• Refining Edges: Refine shadows by paying attention to edges and silhouettes.
• Highlights: Understand highlights as stretched-out speculars due to hair's grooves.
• Textured Hair: Less apparent specular highlights due to less alignment of strands; mat-like surface.

Finishing Touches

• Optional Enhancements:
  • Subtle texture additions to enhance overall piece.
  • Color correction for final adjustments.

Example and Review

• Final result includes detailed hair with subtle texture and highlight adjustments.
• Feedback and comments encouraged for further improvement or tutorial requests (e.g., drawing dragons).

Closing Thoughts

• Importance of study and practice emphasized.
• Engagement with audience for feedback and future content.